Mister Mom, Wednesday Edition
@Melissa
8:43am – Not a whole lot of sleepin’ went on last night, unfortunately. He was restless, and so was the cat.
When I told him we were going to school he said “No….” and looked sad. (I smiled and thought “awww he wants to be with Daddy!”) “…breakfast.” he continued. Cereal bar for the road, and we were on our way!
Drop off went fine this morning… in fact he ran off ahead of me to get to the door once he was in the school. It took him a couple minutes but he was off playing very quickly, and I just quietly left rather than tell him I was leaving. (I can never tell what to do there, I think telling him I’m leaving is a better thing to do so that he doesn’t panic or look for me.)
Miss Judy underlined that the afternoon was “rough” yesterday. I have a feeling I don’t have all the details there.
10:07pm. Pick up went fine. He seemed a little warm despite being dressed appropriately. I got the idea they ran him around outside.
His sheet mentioned his emotional state and a guess that he “probably misses him mommy.” You think?
Went home, glanced at his sheet… did not play outside this time… and Ian seemed very fine with this decision.
I ordered pizza and sat back and waited, then told Ian about ten minutes later. Noted an odd hesitation, checked the sheet… sure enough “pizza, all + 2nds!” Offered Ian a million choices, but when the pizza showed up, that’s what he wanted… so it was a pizza-filled day for the lil guy.
Went through most of the motions of bedtime alright, but was not quite out when you called. And you successfully “tucked him in” from California. He totally cuddled up to a blankie and was out like a light, without so much as a yodel.
Meanwhile…
Yesterday, the 19th after day care we went to a p-a-r-k, I figured he’d be happier there than running around the house. When we pulled into the parking lot, he exclaimed “Look, Daddy, right there! Park! PARK! Isa park!” See this image larger.
This tractor thing was fine, but that yellow thing seemed to barely move… and then BOOM hit Ian square in the teeth. He wasn’t happy but got over it pretty quick. See this image larger.
I remember less than a couple weeks ago Ian was totally afraid of slides… See this image larger.
…not anymore! See this image larger.
This is from the 17th, the day we took Melissa to the airport… Ian woke up from his very long nap and just wanted to lay with me and watch golf… so we did. 
The same day he suggested that he be let in my car… it was in gear, with emergency brake on, so I let him. Right after this picture was taken we both jumped about a foot. 
On the 18th, fresh from day care, Ian and I played outside until supper-time. Here Ian has narrowly avoided the bunker and prepares for another swing for birdie. 
I showed Ian that he could actually take his clubs in their “bag” if he wanted, instead of pulling them out while in the garage… and where the handle is. He immediately started carrying it as such. Here he walks along on the brick border of Mommy’s flowerbed, carefully stepping over the downspout. 
“Wobot.” 
Melissa hadn’t even left yet and the cat claimed her side of the bed. Indeed that is where he slept last night. 
Sweet mohawk! 
Buh-GAWK! 
A couple little scratches from his own nails, actually… Yes, we cut his nails. 
It is funny to me how cute a two year old can be — so much of him is a toddler, but he’s still such a beautiful baby. 
And here he is looking to me like he’s about four years old… 
Same basic shot, but I liked them both. 
Smiling up at his Mommy… we miss you. 
Time for the doggie towel thing again! 
Can you tell there’s some love going on here? 
Kisses for Mommy! 
A quick hug from Daddy! 
Ian explains the visual subtext behind the illustrations in his bedtime story. 
This is an animated gif… if you wait long enough you should see some animation happening. 
Back on May 12th, 2009, Mama snapped this one of Daddy and Ian chilling out in Ian’s room. We miss you, Mama. 
We tried to pull off a nice shot of the three of us, but you can actually see my brain through my nose, so I don’t think we did very well here. 
On May 13th 2009 (Happy Birthday Greg, by the way!) Melissa came home with a new sexy haircut. Ian was shocked by the change. 
Wait, can I say “sexy” in a family blog? How about if I meow like a cat? (We miss you, Sweetie!) 
When I look at this picture I can’t decide if he’s laughing diabolically like a super-villain, if he’s singing like in an opera, or maybe doing a Louis Armstrong imitation. 
I included this one because Ian made me take it. “Pictchuh, Daddy…. CHEEEZ.” And he stood there with his eyes closed, waiting for me to take it. Must have picked up the goofy face habit from Uncle Chris. 😉 
That’s more like it! 
Kisses make boo-boos better! (We miss you, Mommy!) 
Antarctica is cold on his belly, hee hee! 
Speaking of hair, look at all of that kid’s hair! That’s a lot of hair! Remember when he didn’t have any? 
Everybody has cool hair except me because my hair cutting person likes to talk and cut off ALL my hair. 
I look a little crazed because I’m trying to hold the camera and pull off this shot, but otherwise I think it is great… Melissa looks gorgeous, Ian looks silly and happy… This is my wonderful family. We miss you, Melissa! Sweet dreams tonight! 
On the 8th of May I got a new drawing tablet that I am absolutely thrilled with, one can easily draw and change the drawing, adding layers and making changes… it is like magic paper and crayons! This is one of my first “good” drawings with it. 
Over the course of the last many days, I let Ian try out the tablet to see what he thought. Here’s some of his work! 
Really his gestures have a randomness to them that I could never fake, well done! 
Before you get too excited, the butterfly is actually a sort of brush that allows you to paint butterflies… it varies the size, direction, and rough location around your pen. So all Ian is responsible for here is choosing black, choosing a color, and the scribble of his composition… that said, he chose well! 
In the middle of the night, around May first, I grew tired of trying to get Ian to go to sleep, and he seemingly needed me, but was also simultaneously asking for Mommy. Solution? Into our bed I unceremoniously placed him, and there he slept, like a log; mostly on my side of the bed. :-\ 
These are just some nice shots I took while trying out a special flash attachment that Mr. Brandon had on his camera. 
He had this really great mohawk for about three minutes, this night, just before bed. I couldn’t pull off getting a good shot, though, before he mushed it down. 
On the eleventh of May Ian requested to be able to wear his rain-boots that have a planetary theme going on, while he was still in his bear-print pajamas… sounded like a photo-op to me! 
He almost looks startled that I was going to take a picture, you’d think he’d know better by now! 
And play he did. 
And play. 
Play. 
Play. 
Play. 
Rest. 
On the 18th of April Grand Rapids was host to something called the “Chalk Flood.” Apparently there’s a college student mastermind that has come up with a lot of elaborate cool ideas for the city to sort of get together and do. In this one, thousands of people flocked to the city streets to find boxes of sidewalk chalk distributed around… and so… people started doing something wonderful… drawing! So of course this sounded like a great activity for our little man. 
At first perhaps it was a little confusing… 
… and while Ian held Mommy’s hand when it counted…
… this was also his big chance to run free for the day…
…you might even say it was a common theme of our excursion.
There was also some nice artwork to check out, of course, as anyone with an artistic bone in their body had free reign to draw what they wanted.
Overall I’d say it was a fun day, and based on this picture, I’d say Ian thought the same. (Slept really well that night too 🙂 )
This shot is from April 14th — it turns out that if you put the camera on one of our counters and set the timer we can get a nice family shot of us on the steps… might have to do this more often!
Ian’s recent golf lessons with Grampa Dave and his former exposure with Grampa Ray, Grandma Sue, and a little bit of TV has him going a little golf-crazy these days. These shots were taken on the 15th. Here’s a nice chip shot. 
Yup, that’s a ladle. You’d be surprised how very attached he is to that thing. He’s got good follow through sometimes — we’re still working on that “keep your eye on the ball” thing. 
